I had not, however, gone twenty steps before I met Ford Obert, who had entered the corridor from the other end and was, as he immediately let me know, on his way to the smoking-room.
"Is everyone then dispersing?"
"Some of the men, I think," he said, "are following me; others, I believe—wonderful creatures!—have gone to array themselves. Others still, doubtless, have gone to bed."
"And the ladies?"
"Oh, they've floated away—soared aloft; to high jinks—isn't that the idea?—in their own quarters. Don't they too, at these hours, practise sociabilities of sorts? They make, at any rate, here, an extraordinary picture on that great staircase."
I thought a moment. "I wish I had seen it. But I do see it. Yes—splendid. Is the place wholly cleared of them?"
"Save, it struck me, so far as they may have left some 'black plume as a token'——"
"Not, I trust," I returned, "of any 'lie' their 'soul hath spoken!' But not one of them lingers?"
He seemed to wonder. "'Lingers?' For what?"
"Oh, I don't know—in this house!"